As a generation that was raised on an abundant diet of non-committal lifestyle solutions like Tinder, Uber and Airbnb, could the concept of monogamy have become redundant?

With constant access to new faces, dating apps and endless sexual possibilities, a committed monogamous relationship can seem like an archaic relic of the past to some. “Guilt-tripping other people about their sexuality just seems really out-dated.” Says Katherine Li Johnson, a 28 years old Tunisia-based creative consultant who has been in open relationships for the past eight years. “I only want to be in a relationship if it’s open at this point in my life, and my boyfriend was like, ‘great me too!’ So it’s worked perfectly. I don’t think that being in a relationship should infringe upon my, nor his, sexual freedom”.

A concept that was once associated with alternative communities, new age hippies and marriages in decline, has now become a viable option for hardworking post-gender millennials looking to redefine and satisfy their sexual needs on their own terms.

“We’re a poor, hyperactive, freelance society with no security,” says Alice Pfeiffer, a 33 years old Paris-based former journalist at Le Monde, “we have more knowledge and access to other cultures than ever before, so people are treating relationships the same way – accumulation, consumption, rapid trends and fads”.

If there were one trend that millennials have singlehandedly spearheaded, it’d be ‘hookup culture’. Born out of the digital dating age, hook-up culture is the notion of having random commitment-free casual sex with several partners.“The number of times I’ve heard friends in my age group say they’ve been ghosted after sex. It’s incredible.” Says Johnson, “Millennials are a lost generation when it comes to sexuality and relationships. Perhaps Gen Z will be the first to really push the boundaries on normalizing polyamory in a healthy, respectful way, rather than this serial-Tinder-user way”.

While London-based architect Efe Ramirez, 26, who has just come out of a long-term open relationship, says “open relationships aren’t easy”, he continues, “they demand a high level of emotional intelligence. But ultimately they are very sensible and a lot more yielding towards our sexual nature”.

But beneath our generation’s seemingly sex-positive veneer, the traditional constructs of monogamy are ultimately still the end goal for just over two thirds of young people. In a 2015 study conducted by Goldman Sachs, over 70 per cent of millennials wanted to get married while the number of people who want to have children was even higher, at 74 per cent.

“This suggests that millennials are comfortable with the concept of monogamy, but it might not be a good fit for this time in their lives.” Says Lair Torrent, NYC-based therapist and relationship expert, “When you consider that this generation works 45 hours per week on average, you wonder where they might find the time to have a connected committed relationship”.

Much like casual sex – open relationships are far from being a new phenomenon. However the stigma surrounding them, and the confidence to “own” one’s sexuality is something inherently millennial. “It seems to me that it is now a bigger part of the conversation, and that feels new.” Asserts Torrent, “Young people are definitely more open to the idea [of open relationships] than generations before. The thing that has changed the sex lives of millennials the most didn’t actually happen in their generation, it happened with the Baby Boomers”. As a generation that were raised by a group of people that shattered the sexual mores, “what we see here is a trans-generational push of the idea that a committed relationship is not a prerequisite for sex”.

More consequentially, this is also a generation that has been impacted first-hand by the collapse of the “nuclear family” with record-breaking divorce rates.

According to Bloomberg Business, divorce rates in people over 50 have doubled since the 1990s. So unlike our parents, who were bound by social and religious stigmas surrounding marriage and divorce until a later age – we’ve been fortunate enough to have the freedom of choice.

Much like the age-old question of “why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” or our generation’s equivalent, “why buy a car when you have Uber?” Gen Z might start asking: “why settle at all?”